Do You Remember?
by FanfictionRevolution
Summary: A retrospective look at relationships


Do you remember how we first met? It was that night at Angela's party. Your phone had died and Rose had taken mine to stop me from backsliding back to Riley, so you stole that marker off the fridge and wrote your name and number on my arm and then told me to stay 'right there' while you went to get us both a drink. I waited for you for so long that Alice thought I was becoming some sort of loner and dragged me off to dance with her and Jasper. When you finally found me, you'd drank both of our drinks and we were both a little worse for wear, and then I ended up dragging myself back to my halls with my panties in my bag and your number smudged to the point that the numbers failed to make sense anymore. I called Ange the next to ask her how I could contact you but she said she'd never heard of an Edward before, palming you off as someone's plus one.

I thought about you a fair few times for the next couple of months. The girls called it a lost cause but at every party I think I was looking out for you. One night in particular, I think it was one of Mike's 'Post-Game Piss-Ups', I thought I saw a flash of copper outside as some of the guys left the party early and I ran out of his house into the pouring rain searching for you… Coming to think of it I may have been a little bit obsessed. Either way you weren't there. No-one really knows how long I was out there but do you remember that white dress I was wearing for our first date? I was wearing that and let's just say that the football team really enjoyed the sight. Sadly, it was that night that sparked the wet t-shirt contests they became so proud of.

Something good came from it though. A few months later, Victoria stood on the kitchen table (or 'the podium' as they liked to call it), and allowed the boys to throw water on her from every angle. That's how she met James. That's how I met you again.

It was one of those horrible moments when a happy couple bring two unwitting friends to a bar for a drink and somehow forget to mention that it's a blind date. Victoria also must have forgotten because after five shots of tequila I was in no state to meet anyone, let alone make conversation. I still can't believe I vomited on your shoes. Then again I still can't believe you tumble dried your shoes while I slept. If I'd been awake I could've stopped you but watching you the next day, dishevelled from sleeping on my sofa after taking me home, try on put on shoes at least two sizes too small still has to be one of my favourite memories of you.

That and watching you try and talk to my Dad for the first time. You avoided Forks for so long afterwards that my family thought we'd broken up and I was lying to them about our relationship…

Sometimes I wish it had all been a lie. It would have made letting you go so much easier. You were so scared to tell me that you'd been offered that job but I always knew it was coming. You were two years ahead of me, your degree was ending and I wasn't expecting you to sit around waiting for me. The fact that it moved you across the country was the only shocking thing about it. We were determined to make it work though, we thought that we had so much potential.

Those months with you in California were some of the best of my life. After you left for New York it just got so much harder. Work demanded so much from you and I was still the same, spending weekends in a drunken haze which you just couldn't keep up with. The girls warned me it was going to be hard. _If relationships can't survive the transition from home to University, how are two people from different states going to survive cross-country?_ I didn't thank them for the advice at the time but looking back, they were right. It was too much. I was only 20; I couldn't even stop losing my pen, let alone keep hold of you.

Your surprise trip is what showed me we were nearing the end. You kept fielding calls from the office during our day out and when I suggested we crash that party with Rose and Emmett, you looked at me like I was a child. Whereas you always used to have this light in your eyes when you were around me, you now looked at me with a look of disdain. You'd outgrown me.

When you called a couple of months later to tell me you'd met someone else, I probably shouldn't have been surprised. I had no right to be angry with you either. I never told you this but that weekend you couldn't get hold of me? I was avoiding your messages. Our relationship had been strained since you'd left to go back to New York, neither of us was trying hard enough to keep in contact with each other, and during every bump in our relationship Jake had been there for me. And then, after Mike's party I'd been there for him. We celebrated the end of his relationship with Vanessa with shots, which became body shots and ended up with him coming home with me. I had regretted it instantly and I didn't want to tell you because I wasn't ready to admit that we were over but then, less than two weeks later, you called to tell me about Tanya. Nothing had happened yet between you but you felt something for her, something you hadn't felt for a long time and you felt that we'd be better off as friends. After almost a year of being together, you wanted to be friends.

I watched your relationship with her blossom like some kind of dandelion. Your relationship was with her was not something I really wanted to watch grow but Facebook didn't give me a chance to miss a second of it. Tanya liked to document every second of her life and, as a consequence, every second of your life. From your first date, to when you moved in together and when you got that tiny little dog together. You always said you hated little yappy dogs but three years in you got Terrance. What kind of person names a dog Terrance?

It's been years now and I know I should be over you and I am but that doesn't make this any easier. I don't want to watch you marry her. I don't want to fly cross country to watch my 'friend' marry the other girl. I don't want to watch you get everything you ever wanted while I sit in the crowd like some crazy spinster among happy couples.

 **Hi so this is a bit… rough. I haven't read over it properly and I just kind of purged my idea onto a page so if it makes little sense I'm sorry. I'll provide a timeline of events to help you contextualize. Thanks for taking the time to read this though!**

 **Timeline of events:**

 **Bella and Edward meet in October at the start of her first year at University**

 **They meet again in the January though Victoria and James and begin dating soon after**

 **Edward meets her parents in the April**

 **He moves away in the July**

 **He comes to see her in the October**

 **Bella hooks up with Jake in the November**

 **They break up over December**


End file.
